


For You

by thorsodinsn



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 10:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3377435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorsodinsn/pseuds/thorsodinsn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Rick says his name softly, Judith balanced carefully on his hip as he reaches down to brush Shane’s mess of dark hair out of his face. Shane’s brow furrows and a tiny grunt escapes as he tries to curl away. 'Shane. C’mon, wake up.'" || When Shane comes back from a run a little worse for wear, a worried Rick jumps in to offer a helping hand. || Shane/Rick || Drabble || S3/S4 AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For You

                Morning light through prison bars splays golden rays in thin slivers across concrete floors. Ripples of light dance across the quiet cell, stretching and yawning over the bed and the walls. It chases shadows off to distant corners of the room and, as it creeps along his slumbering partner’s skin, Rick can see what he hadn’t last night—the purple bruises squeezed into his arms, the gash brown with old blood slit through his brow, the swell of his chapped lips.

                “Shane.” Rick says his name softly, Judith balanced carefully on his hip as he reaches down to brush Shane’s mess of dark hair out of his face. Shane’s brow furrows and a tiny grunt escapes as he tries to curl away. “Shane. C’mon, wake up.”

                Judith gurgles as though she, too, is trying to rouse him. Shane grunts again, a little louder this time, before his eyes open to thin slits. Rick’s fingers tangle in Shane’s hair, gently massaging his scalp, and Shane turns towards that comforting feeling. He blinks up at his partner, lips twitching up in a tiny smile.

                “Mornin’.”

                “Mornin’,” Rick replies. Judith babbles her own greeting, little hands opening and closing around the fabric of Rick’s shirt. Rick’s hand slips down to Shane’s shoulder, carefully kneading muscles he’s sure are sore. “Can you sit up?” he asks. Shane nods. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, but when he moves to stand Rick shakes his head, squeezing Shane’s shoulder to urge him back down. “Easy. Just sit tight a minute. Hold Judith for me, okay?”

                “Rick, you don’t gotta—“

                “Just take her,” Rick says, already handing the baby over. Her tiny hands settle against Shane’s bare chest and in seconds she is completely enamored by the catch of light bouncing off Shane’s necklace. Shane can’t hide his smile, propping her up on his lap and watching as little fingers slowly toyed with the little silver 22 dangling from his neck.

                “You like that, huh?” he coos. Judith grasps the pendant, holding it in her palm before looking up to Shane. His smile grows wider, warmer, and he stamps a kiss to child’s forehead as she gently tugged at his necklace. “Easy,” he warns with a quiet laugh, calloused fingers sweeping her fine, fair hair to the side.

                “She missed you,” Rick says, dropping a small bowl of water on the floor as he moves to kneel in front of Shane. Shane meets his eyes before his own flicker to the little square rag Rick is wringing over the bowl. “I did, too.”

                He takes the damp cloth and presses it gently against Shane’s brow, free hand moving to hold the back of Shane’s head when he flinches away at the touch. Rick doesn’t miss the low hiss that escapes between his partner’s teeth before Shane says, “Rick, it’s nothin’. I’m fine.”

                “It’s not nothin’, Shane. Just hold still.”

                Any fight Shane’s prepared vanishes when Judith coos, one hand reaching up to touch Shane’s cheek. A ghost of his smile returns, smoothing his features as he gently takes her hand and brushes his lips over her little fingers.

                “You gonna tell me what happened?” Rick asks off-handedly. He’s dabbing the cloth against his friend’s wound, chipping away the dried, cracked blood that settled there overnight. Rick says. Shane frowns, shoulders dropping, sighing heavily as Rick drops the rag back into the steel bowl. “Other guy better look worse.”

                “Already told you he does,” Shane counters. Rick smiles at that. He runs his thumb over the freshly cleaned cut; a scarlet streak of Shane’s blood comes off on his skin.

                “I want Hershel to look at that. He should stitch it.”

                “It don’t need stitches,” Shane argues. Rick shoots him a look, the one he’s patented over the years, the one he should have trademarked when they were still in high school—the _don’t lie to me, don’t fight with me, don’t make this harder than it is_ look that gets Shane to drop his defiant gaze.

                “Let Hershel decide,” Rick tells him in a tone that cancels out any argument. For a good measure, he stretches up to very, very carefully press a kiss right over Shane’s injured eye. His lips linger there for a beat or two before he lets his forehead rest against Shane’s. “For me, okay?”

                Shane closes his eyes and lets himself lean into Rick, the man who has always been his cornerstone, his anchor, his rock. They’re still for a long while, their breath mingling in the sliver of space between them. Shane bounces Judith on his lap, the sudden motion making Rick jerk away. Shane reaches for him, rough hand cupping his stubbled cheek, and he catches Rick’s lips in a kiss.

                “For you.”


End file.
